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T H E J O U R N A L OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D E N G I N E E R I N G C H E M I S T R Y
GROUPOF DIRECTORS : H. P. TALBOT, W. D. BANCROFT, PRESIDENT E. F. S M I T H , W D. SECRETARY C. L. PARSONS, G. D. ROSENGARTEN, A. D. LITTLE
This address was frequently i n t e r r u p t e d by long applause, a n d i t was a source of great delight t o those assembled t o note t h e Senator’s keen conception of t h e importance of t h e Chemical Warfare Service a n d t h e chemical industries t o t h e future welfare of t h e Nation. T h e entire audience rose while President S m i t h t h a n k e d Senator Wadsworth for his inspiring address. Congressman Nicholas Longworth, 0: Ohio, was t h e n introduced by t h e President.
The American Chemical Industry and Its Need for Encouragement and Protection By Hon. Nicholas Longworth In acknowledging the great gratification I feel for your most kindly reception,’I ought perhaps to apologize for the fact that I came here to speak to this most august and distinguished body entirely unprepared. I made an agreement with the distinguished Senator who has just addressed you that neither of us would prepare any remarks so that neither would have any advantage over the other, but his well-rounded periods have shown that the midnight oil has been burning, and without challenging comparison with what he has said or I am about to say, I can only hope that my address will not be much worse. What the Senator and I may be able to help to do for the chemical industries of this country will lie in action in Washington and not in telling you things here that you know already. I dropped in on Friday afternoon a t a mansion known to every American, the oldest, the most dignified official residence in the United States, and there met a man whom I am glad to call my friend and the friend of Senator Wadsworth, the most
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influential man in the United States and in the whole world to-day, and he said: “I hear that you and Jim are going to address the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY.May I suggest that what the industry needs more than addresses is protection?” With that sentiment I heartily agree, and I am here to tell you today that you are going to get protection. I am just as modest, and perhaps with even more reason, about my accomplishments as a chemist as is my friend the Senator. I attained my early education a t Harvard University, and as far as my chemical researches were concerned they were confined mainly to the judicious admixture of HzO with C2HaOH. I might say that my researches have been very much limited since my colleague Volstead got into action. Now I find myself the chairman of the subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee for framing the chemical schedule, and I think that even you skilled chemists will admit that that is a pretty hard job to-day in the present situation of the country and the world, and perhaps I can best occupy a few minutes in telling you the situation from the practical standpoint with regard to the chemical schedule to be written into the tariff bill. PROBLEMS IN ARRANGING THE CHEMICAL SCHEDULE IN THE TARIFF BILL
In the first place, there is no human being that I have ever met who can tell us the cost of production of chemicals in this country and certainly not the cost of production abroad. It is a field of guess work, and we cannot follow the old definition carried in many Republican platforms in making duties for competing articles, that is to say, the adjustment of the difference in cost of production here and abroad because we cannot find out what those costs are, and we are, on the other hand, not up on the question of what the prices are. We have come across
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T H E J O U R N A L OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D E N G I N E E R I N G C H E M I S T R Y
instances of chemicals, well-known chemicals, whose prices have varied in the past three years in thousands of per cent. I cannot think of the name of the chemical now, but I know one which has varied from ten cents to $4 a pound in the last three years. We have a man-sized job before US. I had hoped that in framing the program for duties on chemicals, as well as on every other article of international commerce, we might be able to go back to specific duties. When you have these, you know exactly where “you are at,” and it furnishes more effective protection to American industry than ad valorem duties, and yet a specific duty which Dr. Herty might suggest to me to-day three or four months from to-day might not be a protective duty or a revenue duty, and thus we are forced in most cases to go to ad valorem duties. Moreover, a situation faces us which has never before faced us in this country, the question of foreign exchange. Values expressed in terms of German currency or Italian currency or even French currency, when translated into an ad valorem duty based upon value, reduce any tariff rate almost to the vanishing point. There is one way in which we can deal with that situation. We never tried it but once, and that more than a hundred years ago, and that is to have it based on the wholesale price of those products here in America. It is extremely difficult to work out, and adds a great deal to the technical difficulties of administration, but it is absolutely necessary if we are going to protect the American industries to-day, where we are forced to put on ad valorem duties. Never before in the making of an American tariff has it happened that instead of being a debtor nation we are a creditor nation. Europe owes us $14,000,000,000. How are they ever going to pay us if we bar them, and yet how are we going to permit them to come in with any regularity when a country such as Japan will come in and monopolize our market and that of our late allies? This is the question facing us and one for which it is hard to find a solution. My personal idea is to have what might be called a “bargaining” tariff with three different rates of duty: (1) a conventional rate to prevail against every country; (2) a maximum rate to be used against any countries who treat us on less favorable terms than they do other countries; and (3) a minimum rate to be applied by the President to certain articles by an agreement with another country that certain of their articles might be admitted, under consideration of certain of our articles being admitted in that country under particularly favorable treatment. You might have certain minimum duties on perfumes, imported from France, in consideration of similar preferential treatment by France of imports of chemicals from America, in which way we could keep up trade without knocking the bottom out of American industries. So much for the matters facing us with regard to the protective features of these various chemicals., PROTECTION OF THE DYE INDUSTRY
But we come to one class of chemicals for which no protective rate, however high, is in fact protective-I mean all coal-tar products. Thousand per cent duties would not help that situation. We have not only to put duties on some chemicals, but also to keep some out altogether. The bill which I introduced in the last Congress, and which passed the House but never got through the Senate, I propose to put bodily into the chemical schedule, except that instead of having the license feature as written in that bill, i t will be changed into a selective embargo. The proposition of the license, or the mention of the word license, as Dr. Herty and others who have taken a great interest in the matter well know, does not sound well to many American business men. They don’t like to have to get a license to import chemicals. It is proposed that the Tariff Commission shall make a list of dyes not importable under any conditions, another of those importable under certain conditions, and another of those importable under any condition. Roughly speaking, those dyes
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which Germany makes and which we make here a t reasonable prices and in reasonable quantities are not to be permitted to come into this country at all for a reasonable period; those which are produced here, but in limited quantities and where delivery might not be certain, may be imported under certain conditions and in certain quantities, and dyes not produced here may be imported. I am firmly convinced that Germany is simply awaiting the day when the present restrictions against limitless import of these products is raised, and that there will be a flood of these produc1.s into this country which will wipe out those industries developed here during and since the war. My impression is that the German dye works are running full time, are larger than they ever were before, that none of them were destroyed or even damaged, and that their forces were not called upon to serve in the army but required to stay in the plants and produce.
HON.NICHOLAS LONGWORTH
If we want to save this basic industry in war and in peace, we must go to the extent of putting a flat embargo on the product, and I have every reason to believe that this time we are going to be successful. There is another condition that makes this proposition even more difficult. I have told you of the problems that we are trying to solve with regard to a tariff. In my judgment, we shall not get a bill through before November or December. The War Trade Board, which now limits importation of coaltar products and others from enemy countries, goes out of existence the first of July, or even sooner if the Knox resolution declaring peace with Germany is passed by the Congress. We shall not have the bill ready in the Ways and Means Committee very much before the first of July, and in order to make effective some sort of prohibition against these importations, we must pass a joint resolution the very day the tariff measure is introduced in the House, and make the provisions of that resolution law until the President signs the bill. It is drastic but absolutely necessary, and I think I can promise you it will be done. I have said this much only to try to bring before your minds the difficulties that we amatuer chemists have in trying to
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translate into legislative action what we think ought to be done. The situation looks immensely favorable, and I believe that the average American and every member of the Upper and Lower House has finally got through his head the thought so ably presented by Senator Wadsworth, that the chemical industry, in so far as it relates to preparedness for war or defense against war, lies in the continuance of the chemical industry, and to have that industry effective in time of war it must be permitted to continue to exist industrially in time of peace. That is the whole situation in a nutshell. I think it was Edison who said some years ago that the next war would be a war of chemicals, and the most unfortunate war, not yet over, a t least in a technical sense, was absolutely a war of chemicals. No matter how brave your boys may be, or how powerful your guns may be, or how many your ships, unless you have explosives you cannot wage war, and if other nations know you have not explosives, they will come and make war on you. What chance would any nation not prepared with poison gases have against any other so prepared, self-sufficient at all times, and which did not have to depend on Chile or any country for explosives? . In thanking you for your courtesy, I close by reiterating what Senator Wadsworth has said: If the time comes, as God forbid it will for years to come, when we again become involved in war, what an immense advantage will accrue t o us from the existence of the Chemical Warfare Service and a SOCIETY like this, composed of men who know the technical side of the very bed-rock necessity for war for the preservation of our country and of American institutions. Mr. Longworth’s address was also received with great enthusiasm, a n d his references t o President Harding’s a t t i t u d e toward t h e needs of t h e chemical industry, a s well as t h e Congressman’s assurance t h a t t h e American dye industry shall not be permitted t o disintegrate, were heartily applauded. Again t h e entire audience stood while President Smith t h a n k e d t h e speaker for his splendid, reassuring message. T h e meeting adjourned shortly after t h e noon hour.
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l a y m a n , attendance a t t h e Rochester Chamber of Commerce luncheon o n Wednesday, April 27, surely dispelled i t . It was a wonderfully pleasing sight t o behold t h e great dining hall of t h e Chamber of Commerce filled t o t h e last available seat with members of t h e Rochester Chamber of Commerce a n d members CHEMICAL SOCIETY, who intermingled of t h e AMERICAN a n d conversed a s though chemists a n d business men h a d been lifelong partners. Dr. Arthur D. Little rose t o t h e occasion in a masterful address which brought home t o those assembled t h e close relation between chemistry a n d everyday life. It was a h a p p y t h o u g h t on t h e p a r t of t h e officers of t h e Rochester Chamber of Commerce a n d t h e members of t h e Rochester Section t o stage this “get-together” of progressive business men a n d chemists from all over t h e country a n d t o secure Dr. Little as t h e speaker of t h e meeting. Those who were fortunate enough t o a t t e n d considered t h e affair one of t h e most pleasing incidents in t h e convention program. One business man remarked
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AFTERNOON SESSION
Just as t h e first session of t h e General Meeting h a d evoked great enthusiasm in behalf of t h e public a n d economic aspects of chemistry, so t h e second session held a t Convention Hall showed t h e keen interest with which members of t h e SOCIETY always receive t h e results of fundamental research i n t h e development of t h e science of chemistry. Six papers were presented at this session, covering a wide range of subjects. E. C. Franklin read a very interesting paper o n “Ammono Carbonic Acids.” C. E. K. Mees spoke on “ T h e Measurement of Color” a n d illustrated his remarks with l a n t e r n slides. “Blue Eyes a n d Blue Feathers,” a n illustrated paper b y W. D. Bancroft, “Surface Films as Plastic Solids” by R. E. Wilson, “ T h e Relation between t h e Stability a n d t h e Structure of Molecules” b y Irving Langmuir, a n d t h e “Ionization of Electrolytes” b y G. N. Lewis completed t h e program. T h e attendance a t this second general session was fully as great a n d possibly greater t h a n t h a t a t t h e General Meeting held i n t h e morning.
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C H A M B E R OF C O M M E R C E L U N C H E O N
If t h e r e was a n y doubt o n t h e p a r t of anyone a s t o ,the recognition of t h e importance of chemistry b y t h e
H. E. HowE W. D. BANCROFT, PRESIDENT SMITH,DAVIDW ~ S S O N , AND ROBERTF. RUTTAN, ADMINISTRATIVE CHAIRMAN OF THE ADVISORY C O U S C I L FOR SCIEXTIPIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH IN
CANADA
t h a t t h e inscription “Commerce carries civilization around t h e world” which appears in large letters above t h e rostrum of t h e assembly hall in t h e Chamber of Commerce might well be changed t o “Chemistry carries civilization around t h e world.” T r u l y , Commerce a n d Chemistry, l a y m a n a n d chemist, a y e getting together. Dr. Little’s address follows:
The Place of Chemistry in Business By A. D. Little In the mind of the average business man chemistry is something quite apart from business, an abstruse science that deals with things of evil smell and unpronounceable names, something for the laboratory or the underpaid professor, but with which the hard-headed man of affairs has little need to concern himself. Yet you business men, who deal in dollars, think it well worth your while t o learn all you can about them. YOUwant to know where they are plentiful and where they are scarce. You follow their purchasing power and the interest rate they carry. You sit up nights trying t o devise new ways t o put
